I found this very interesting. I hope you can find this info if you google it if you can’t view TikTok. It’s showing a rider’s femur with a large protrusion which developed from keeping your legs on the horse.
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All sorts of activities show up in our bones. It’s fascinating how much bones tell about the life they lived.
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Can’t decide if this should be goals or not?
But man, having just had a small vet appointment today where we talked about the extensive amount of bone remodeling in my sneezy cat’s nasal cavities, bodies are amazing! And bones, despite us thinking about them as being pretty static can not only heal themselves, but also reshape themselves (often not for out benefit, but it’s still a pretty amazing process).
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Early race training on immature horses increases bone density and joint surface development for a better chance of long term soundness in racing TBs. This training can not be done with horses who do not have the early neuromuscular development that a TB has, due to 400 years of selective breeding to produce this trait. Bone development is most effective in young, immature bones. Those who criticize early training in racing TBs don’t understand this. But yes, bone changes as a result of what forces are put upon it. This is why young humans SHOULD push themselves hard in physical pursuits, for strength and health in old age, IMO. Having children leaches calcium out of bones, making them more porous and weaker in old age (osteoporosis). Yet another reason for females to not produce offspring. Bone is a living, changing tissue.
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Uh, yeah… But then where does the next generation come from?
I’m a no-kids senior, but glad someone else took my ZPG ration 
Based on that article, I’m now wondering if my ankles were remodeled by the 1950-60s insistence that I “show me the soles of your boots” lower leg position I was taught then.
Both ankles have “spurs” on the outer surface. Pronounced enough so my parents had them examined & x-rayed when I was around 12 (started riding Huntseat when I was 8).
They’re not as prominent now, but sadly contribute to my “cankles” appearance, as soft tissue covers them.
Ortho Doc then was unconcerned & AFAIK they haven’t caused any problems.
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I was just watching a NOVA program on PBS last night where they talked about the skeletons that were found while rebuilding Notre Dame. One was an unknown person, but they could tell he had ridden extensively due to skeletal changes in his hip bones IIRC.
It was fascinating how much they could learn about a person from their skeleton.
ETA a link to the episode:
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A horse, a horse
My Kingdom for a horse
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For the Yellowstone fans, I also noticed in one of the recent episodes that Lloyd is extremely bowlegged. Lol.
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Could just be arthritis.
That’s what I’m thanking for my “cowboy stance” 
Never had kids and have been active my whole life, including 40+ years of running and marathon-level distances. Have had osteoporosis and osteopenia and been treated for it with reversal. Still, always tested and will treat as needed!
I have a large navicular bone in my foot, but not from riding. It looks like a second ankle.
My spine x-ray looks like the equestrian one in the picture. After almost two years it’s almost back to normal.
I sent the video to my anthropologist friend who just finished her doctorate and this is what she shared;
Actually this is a hotly debated issue in anthro that has proven to be not true! You can’t manipulate bone like that through movement after growth ends. So unless they were riding pre-fusion essentially it won’t actually change bone shape. Also the large outcrop of bone their showing occurs when muscle has been pulled from bone during and injury, that’s not something you get from just riding a lot. The changes those articles cite are most likely things like arthritis or bone diseases/wear that would be linked to over use of a certain joint. But that’s bone degeneration, not bone generation as the presenter suggests. This person doesn’t really know what they’re talking about lol, but they only have a BA so good try for them I guess?
I mean they tried I just think they haven’t taken advanced classes in bone development yet. Also there are plenty of professors that still teach that outdated information, so they might have been taught wrong. They were like 50% of the way there they just needed the right info! 
Who knew this was a hotly debated thing
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Well, I said it was ‘interesting’ 
Amazing
I wondered, when I saw that bone, how riding would affect a bone to grow that way.
Glad to see everyone’s responses to this, though.
What about the people who started riding as young kids and never stopped? They were riding before their growth ended, I would think.
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@MHM From my friend!
Yes and no, that can change the morphology of the bone somewhat but not that bony outcrop thing. And probably not to the degree most people would think. Like I said that results from injury, you see it when the muscle is pulled really hard and fast off of the bone.
Here’s an article that describes bone remodeling if you’re interested! But also highlighted one of the main points of disproving “wolfs law” which is what that theory is called: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Owen-Lovejoy/publication/274433226_Developmental_Biology_and_Human_Evolution/links/09e4150576bc526a7e000000/Developmental-Biology-and-Human-Evolution.pdf
Thanks.
I’m thinking of a kid that I’ve known for about twelve years, since she was around six years old.
When I first met her, she was extremely tiny, even for a small pony. And now she is probably around 5’8”, so she has probably grown almost two feet since I’ve known her. And she has been riding hours a day pretty much every day for that entire time.
So I have no trouble believing that her structure may have been affected by all those hours in the saddle as she was growing.
I also have a theory that as kids grow up staring down at their phones all the time, that posture is probably going to affect the structure of their necks and shoulders before too many years go by. But I don’t have any proof of that theory as yet. Lol.
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Most definitely, I’m sure we will see plenty coming out on that sooner than later. I have disc degeneration disease in my neck; PT and a lot of attention to posture to not exacerbate it get me by. I see a lot of people, both kids and adults that have very poor posture and poor muscle strength. So many of us spend a lot of time sitting already and then to add poor posture looking down at phones 
